Just as King Herod beheaded John the Baptist, either you two are going to behead me or I’m going to behead you two. There’s a beautiful double-blindness to life, and the dual(sic-duel) unfolding explanation to it all.

At this fork in the road, I need to choose repentance and love.

But love is not necessarily parties and dances and laughter. I think King Herod could afford that, but he was still distressed and guilt-ridden

To some level, I know I need a desert foundation on the standard of truth.

One of the first few times I listened to the song, I was a little surprised by the word “captive” because I didn’t expect it.

I’ve heard variations of “love can make a heart feel free,” but I haven’t heard about love’s boundaries in quite a while.

We sing about being “captivated by love,” though, so it took me a second to realize that’s not what her lyrics mean.

I know enough to know that boundaries are not “bad”; people just don’t like the idea of being restricted.

How about you, though? Have you thought about the boundaries of love at all?

Now that you’re thinking about it at least a teeny tiny bit from reading my question,

What do you think they include?

If you love someone/thing, you can’t hate them?

If you love someone/thing, you shouldn’t hurt them?

It can’t be that simple. I just don’t know what determines the lines. lalala.

I know that in that line of the song,

“captive by its boundaries” serves as a contrast to “a heart that feels free”

As indicated by the word “or”

But, just extending the thought some more,

I can imagine an untethered heart that feels free but is actually captive to selfish desires.

I can imagine a bounded heart that is perfectly content

I’m reminded of the ‘fish outside of its fishbowl’ metaphor from Reason for God

I know that boundaries necessarily form borders

And that, again, it’s not “bad” to be within the borders of something.

I can imagine there are love-analogies for

Country borders vs. town borders, maps,

Borders that change over time due to natural change of the landscape or because of politics and war

Border patrol and illegal immigrants

The line from later in the song, “is it true that love is done when the line’s crossed over” then becomes more nuanced.

Anyway, the other interesting thing about the song I want to share would be the “l*s*” thing you probably noticed.

The first million times I listened to the song, I really thought she sang

“love can happen easily, but less when it’s done purposefully”

And that would have made lots of sense to me.

First of all, more and more I see that “it’s not unusual to be loved by anyone”

But, also, from my perspective as someone who has never been in a relationship,

it seems like every relationship starts unpurposefully

It’s always a coincidence, an unexpected blessing.

And anyway, it’s not like I haven’t been affected by Disney and Asian dramas.

So, again, I was pleasantly surprised to find out the lyrics are really

“love can happen easily, but lasts when it’s done purposefully”

This made little sense to me at first, but then I thought about it and realized

-my parents love me unconditionally but purposefully; I wasn’t an accident baby as far as I know

-I’m easily impressed by people, but the people I truly love (to different degrees) and not just admire are people I do things with, people with whom I share common goals (regardless of whether they’re explicit goals)

I don’t love them because of the purpose, but I couldn’t love them without the purpose.

It is the Man and Woman united that make the compleat human Being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason; he, her Softness, Sensibility and acute Discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the World.

LOL. Historical correspondence from people like Benjamin Franklin and Sophie Germain xD

These examples provide the reason for my desire to start a dialogue of letters with someone.

God’s speaking through many people to call me back, but I’m so stubborn I wonder if it’ll take physical/emotional trauma for me to snap back to my senses.

The black cloud that shrouds me right now? There’s a layer of envy, of you specifically. I actually don’t react too much when I notice that others are more in tune spiritually than I am, but when you tell me about how you prayed with Suzanne and about all the Christian things you do on campus, I get envious. I’ve always been envious of you, though, and you know that. So I’d really really encourage you to keep doing it and maybe even to do it even more. Inundate me with updates about your life and about your faith so I know who this new you is. All your stories are really testimonies, even if you may belittle them a little.

I understand, after reading my Xanga today, that you may not really know who the new me is. I know I tell you about Andre and Barnard and IV, but I also know it’s hard for you to piece together the puzzle. But please try? And please force your life back into my consciousness. Otherwise, I will forget you. I will lose you. And I don’t want that to happen.

I just still don’t know what to do or think when Michael is mean to me. I talked to Homy a little about this, and it shocked her to think that Mike could ever be mean. So she, in addition to you, is someone I can’t talk about my broken friendship with Mike. Which is fine, I guess, since I have a psychologist now >_>

I don’t know what to do when I see from the side of my eye that you two send long emails to each other. I want to know the content of your lovey dovey ness even if it may make me flinch. I don’t actually need long emails from you–not if they’re going to be so caring but still not deep or personal enough for me to, again, get to know you.

Honestly, I don’t know what I want from you.

i don’t want to do this, but maybe it’s honesty:
if i may compare you to andre, who happens to be one of my closer friends now against better judgment, the reason i pushed him away was partly because i liked him romantically but was also largely just because he didn’t know what i wanted (and i hate that question, as any guy who’s gotten close to me should know, i hope) and i didn’t know what he felt or wanted. we are able to still be friends because he told me his side finally in a way that satisfied me.

actually, what he said probably wasn’t complete. he may be gay and not know it yet. but that’s a different story.

so here we go: i’m gonna try something potentially dumb. but.

I’M GOING TO PUSH YOU AWAY. I LOVED YOU, AND I THINK I LOVE YOU, BUT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH MY MIXED FEELINGS TOWARDS YOU.

If you would please talk about my word vomit, I hope and pray that our friendship can be stronger from it.

we visited haverford for the info session and campus tour, ran like maniacs to and fro swarthmore in 20 minutes, went to michael chan’s dorm at upenn, ate delish crepes, got knocked out (not knocked up) on the bolt bus…and didn’t use our 1-day SEPTA pass at all.

i love sisi huang.

i wish we could have gone to fashion night tonight. free manicures and free samples of stuff and lots of discounts at stores. and just–fun.